Strawberry Dessert A Combined Effort
Camp Fire offers many activities to challenge young people. Many of these activities are organized into units, with boys and girls earning patches for completing each unit.
Emily Kasman remembers the unit she did last year on cooking. To earn her patch, she had to prepare a full day’s worth of meals. Kasman’s menu looked like this: scrambled eggs for breakfast, grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for lunch, and baked popcorn shrimp with green beans for dinner.
Kasman, 13, has had a variety of experiences in her kitchen at home with parents Doug and Roxy and brother Kyle.
She’s a pro at pancakes on weekends. “I really enjoy doing that,” says Kasman, who also likes making zucchini and banana breads. She helps her mom fix lasagna, and she’s gearing up for the clam chowder her family makes on Christmas Eve.
One of her favorite cooking activities is making stuffed shells with her father, using the low-fat recipe on the back of the box.
Kasman is student body president this semester at Chase Middle School. Her interests include gymnastics and jazz, and she’s also active in the youth group at First Presbyterian Church.
With her mother, Kasman has adapted a rhubarb crisp recipe to include strawberries. It’s a dessert worth a patch all by itself.
Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Adapted from “Betty Crocker’s Cookbook” (Bantam Books).
1-1/2 cups fresh or frozen sliced strawberries, thawed
4 cups cut-up fresh or frozen rhubarb, thawed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/3 to 2 cups sugar (depending on tartness of rhubarb)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup butter or margarine
Sweetened whipped cream
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place strawberries and rhubarb in ungreased 10- by 6- by 1-1/2-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with salt. Measure sugar, flour and cinnamon into bowl. Add butter and mix thoroughly until mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over rhubarb.
Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm with whipped cream.
Yield: 6 servings.
Kid cook alert: Pickles are a popular pick among the pint-sized public. Pickle Packers International has put together a brochure, “Fun Foods For Kids,” featuring - you guessed it - pickles. Send a self-addressed, stamped, business-size envelope to: Pickle Brochure, c/o DHM Group, P.O. Box 767, Dept. PK, Holmdel, NJ 07733.
, DataTimes MEMO: Kid Stuff is a monthly column featuring recipes for and by kids. Young chefs can send letters describing their cooking interests to Kid Stuff, Features Department, The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.